The Kitchen Theater Company in Ithaca is opening its new season with Mario Correa’s N/A, a two-character play about politics, generational differences, and two women who may agree on the destination but have very different ideas about how to get there.
Emily Jackson of the Kitchen Theater Company says the play centers on an established politician welcoming a newly elected, more progressive newcomer.
“It really is a story about these two women who have such strong moral values, who have things they want to share and hopes and dreams for the country,” Jackson says. “And when those visions of America collide, that is when the fireworks start.”The play is loosely inspired by real political figures, but Jackson says its focus is less on specific politicians than on the women at the center of the story and their hopes for social change.
Correa also brings some firsthand experience to the subject. He worked in the office of an established Democratic politician, giving him an insider’s perspective on the workings of Congress and the relationships within political offices.
“He really had firsthand experience in the room where this might have happened,” Jackson says.
The Kitchen Theater production features two actors who are new to the company: Emily Bosco, who plays the younger politician, and Peggy J. Scott, who plays the established politician. Scott has a particularly close connection to the play. She covered the role in the original New York production and was involved in the development of the work.
Jackson says that connection is especially valuable because N/A is still relatively early in its theatrical life.
"The people in the room in those first productions are totally shaping the play,” she says. “We are also, as we like to be at Kitchen Theater Company, sort of on the beginning edge of this play’s journey.”
With only two actors, N/A is also an especially intimate production for the Kitchen Theater’s thrust-style stage, where the audience sits on three sides of the action.
“In a two-person show, the audience can really feel as if they are on one side or the other,” Jackson says. “The audience becomes a little bit of the bullpen, the cheerleading squad behind each of the actors.”
That intimacy also means there is nowhere for the performers to hide.
“It is up close,” Jackson says. “When you can see the actors’ every move, their eyelashes twitch, when you can see your fellow audience members from across the way, it becomes a very communal and civic experience.”
Although the characters share many fundamental goals, their differences are rooted partly in age and experience. The younger politician wants change—and wants it quickly—while the veteran argues that progress often comes after decades of work.
Jackson says neither character has an easy victory.
“They each take great points. They each win a little bit,” she says. “Maybe by the end of the show, you’re not exactly sure which side has won it all.”
And that ambiguity may be exactly what the Kitchen Theater hopes audiences will take with them.
Mario Correa’s N/A opens September 9 and runs through September 27 at the Kitchen Theater Company, 417 West State Street in Ithaca. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 7 p.m., with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. More information is available at kitchentheater.org.